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Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Is that not a commentary on the limitations of English, rather than Orks, societally, having genders?
Boyz/Boy is an Orkish word. Therefore it by no means carries the same definition as the English definition. It’s like Trunk. To me, that’s something an elephant has. To our American chums, it’s where you put the shopping in your car.
Orks using English masculine pronouns and terms doesn’t mean Orks are a single gender. Or even have a concept of such things.
When you’re an Ork? You’re an Ork. And because everyone knows Orks are the best, that’s seemingly enough definition for their society.
It's largely irrelevant whether the orks are aware or not for the context of the conversation. The fact Ghazkul is on his crusade to make the biggest waagh ever, instead of simply "their" is the point.
Trunk is also the name for an elephants appendage in America, they just co-opted it as a synonym for boot. You'll have a hard time persuading someone that "boy" is a synonym for something that is genderless however.
Saying that, iirc they use male pronouns for one another aswell rather than genderless.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2024/05/06 14:41:17
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Is that not a commentary on the limitations of English, rather than Orks, societally, having genders?
Boyz/Boy is an Orkish word. Therefore it by no means carries the same definition as the English definition. It’s like Trunk. To me, that’s something an elephant has. To our American chums, it’s where you put the shopping in your car.
Orks using English masculine pronouns and terms doesn’t mean Orks are a single gender. Or even have a concept of such things.
When you’re an Ork? You’re an Ork. And because everyone knows Orks are the best, that’s seemingly enough definition for their society.
It's largely irrelevant whether the orks are aware or not for the context of the conversation. The fact Ghazkul is on his crusade to make the biggest waagh ever, instead of simply "their" is the point.
Trunk is also the name for an elephants appendage in America, they just co-opted it as a synonym for boot. You'll have a hard time persuading someone that "boy" is a synonym for something that is genderless however.
Saying that, iirc they use male pronouns for one another aswell rather than genderless.
Well, perhaps more pertinently they use male pronouns when translated into English/Low Gothic. It is humans who have assigned that.
ChargerIIC wrote: If algae farm paste with a little bit of your grandfather in it isn't Grimdark I don't know what is.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Is that not a commentary on the limitations of English, rather than Orks, societally, having genders?
Boyz/Boy is an Orkish word. Therefore it by no means carries the same definition as the English definition. It’s like Trunk. To me, that’s something an elephant has. To our American chums, it’s where you put the shopping in your car.
Orks using English masculine pronouns and terms doesn’t mean Orks are a single gender. Or even have a concept of such things.
When you’re an Ork? You’re an Ork. And because everyone knows Orks are the best, that’s seemingly enough definition for their society.
It's largely irrelevant whether the orks are aware or not for the context of the conversation. The fact Ghazkul is on his crusade to make the biggest waagh ever, instead of simply "their" is the point.
Trunk is also the name for an elephants appendage in America, they just co-opted it as a synonym for boot. You'll have a hard time persuading someone that "boy" is a synonym for something that is genderless however.
Saying that, iirc they use male pronouns for one another aswell rather than genderless.
Well, perhaps more pertinently they use male pronouns when translated into English/Low Gothic. It is humans who have assigned that.
And that would actually be a possibility for interesting worldbuilding. You could have a difference between how different characters refer to Orks based on their familiarity with the actual biology of the Ork species. Those who know they are genderless use they/them, whereas those who don't use he/him, based on associating the outward appearance, vocal inflection etc. of orks with male.
That is actual "show don't tell" worldbuilding. Like how in Fallout: New Vegas there is the different pronunciations of Caesar depending on whether the speaker is more aligned or familiar with the Legion or Vegas/NCR.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2024/05/06 14:59:34
The Laws of Thermodynamics:
1) You cannot win. 2) You cannot break even. 3) You cannot stop playing the game.
Colonel Flagg wrote:You think you're real smart. But you're not smart; you're dumb. Very dumb. But you've met your match in me.
Orcs and Orks are both established as spore based fungoid lifeforms, so they do not have gendered reproduction or secondary genders in any way, shape, or form. Tossing out decades of lore to rewrite their history in order to appeal to another demographic or to capitulate to an increasingly loud section of their fan base expressly for sales purposes would indeed be pandering.
And yet Orcs and orks are gendered.
Female orc cheerleader (the old one to prevent anyone making cries of recent wokeness or whatever):
Spoiler:
In 40k Orks are "boyz" Gahzkull and the warbosses are "he" in narratives, they are very much male and identified as such by the company and themselves in the fluff.
You must be pretty desperate to use that as the basis for Orks being gendered when you're choosing the female orc cheerleader that is for Bloodbowl, which is explicitly a separate universe from the rest of warhammer that has no relation to the rest of Fantasy and definitely not 40k, where many of the models are made tongue in cheek and in reference to the world being based around a football game.
Meanwhile, in the previous Ork/Gender thread there's this from WAAARGH the Orks (pretty far back in lore canon as well so you can't claim it's a recent development) that directly contradicts your claim that Orks are gendered:
p88
"Unlike other races, Orks have no genders. The breeding ability develops in an Ork after he reaches maturity and becomes feral. Roughly half of the wild Orks develop marsupial pouches, in which an Ork whelp is born and nurtured. After a short span of time, the whelp is big enough to leave the pouch. The feral parent feeds the whelp on Squigs and teaches him how to survive in the wilderness. This gives the young Orks their tough, resourceful character."
Or are you going to admit that you want to just cherry pick what you want or don't want for lore and you actually don't care about it after all?
The poster they are responding to said orcs and orks, so it is reasonable to assume they were talking about the wider GW view of greenskins and not just 40k. It is off-topic for a 40k thread though.
Anyway, there is a difference between having genders and being gendered/using gendered language. Many languages assign genders to, say, furniture. A chair doesn't have a gender, but it can be referred to in a gendered way.
Grimskul wrote:
A Town Called Malus wrote: Orks have no gender, yet the writer immediately genders them as male by referring to them as he/him.
Which is exactly the point that Dudeface was making. The writing constantly refers to Orks as male. One line saying they are genderless followed by many, many lines referring to them as the male gender, which is gonna stick in the audiences mind more?
This is like the difference between the text and framing in a movie. For example, in the text of the first Transformers movie, Megan Fox's character is a skilled mechanic who is smarter and more competent than the male protagonist. Yet the framing of her character is that of a sex object, with lingering shots of her body. And you know which of those the audience left the theatre remembering and identifying as her character? The visual framing of eye candy.
Yet you guys bend over backwards to try and claim that all previous mentions of Custodes using that same framing of language that refer men and sons is gender neutral as a way to justify the sudden GW's sudden statement of Custodes having women in their ranks this entire time. You can't have it both ways.
These are not mutually exclusive. Male pronouns being the default for a genderless group is the same as being used as the default for a mixed gender group.
Orcs and Orks are both established as spore based fungoid lifeforms, so they do not have gendered reproduction or secondary genders in any way, shape, or form. Tossing out decades of lore to rewrite their history in order to appeal to another demographic or to capitulate to an increasingly loud section of their fan base expressly for sales purposes would indeed be pandering.
And yet Orcs and orks are gendered.
Female orc cheerleader (the old one to prevent anyone making cries of recent wokeness or whatever):
In 40k Orks are "boyz" Gahzkull and the warbosses are "he" in narratives, they are very much male and identified as such by the company and themselves in the fluff.
You must be pretty desperate to use that as the basis for Orks being gendered when you're choosing the female orc cheerleader that is for Bloodbowl, which is explicitly a separate universe from the rest of warhammer that has no relation to the rest of Fantasy and definitely not 40k, where many of the models are made tongue in cheek and in reference to the world being based around a football game.
Meanwhile, in the previous Ork/Gender thread there's this from WAAARGH the Orks (pretty far back in lore canon as well so you can't claim it's a recent development) that directly contradicts your claim that Orks are gendered:
p88
"Unlike other races, Orks have no genders. The breeding ability develops in an Ork after he reaches maturity and becomes feral. Roughly half of the wild Orks develop marsupial pouches, in which an Ork whelp is born and nurtured. After a short span of time, the whelp is big enough to leave the pouch. The feral parent feeds the whelp on Squigs and teaches him how to survive in the wilderness. This gives the young Orks their tough, resourceful character."
Or are you going to admit that you want to just cherry pick what you want or don't want for lore and you actually don't care about it after all?
I don't know, you said they haven't gendered orcs, you didn't caveat in which specific universe they hadn't gendered them in. Or are you cherry picking what you want as well?
I mean they might be genderless but as I clearly stated and you proved for me the fact the genderless baby is a he would imply a gender to the audience, setting and GW.
They are different people.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2024/05/06 15:59:00
ChargerIIC wrote: If algae farm paste with a little bit of your grandfather in it isn't Grimdark I don't know what is.
We don’t actually know if Orks know, or indeed care if they do, that other species have males and females, because it’s just Not A Thing for the Ork species.
If you’re smaller and weedier than them? It’s because you’re not green like a proper Ork. Not because of what is and isn’t in your undies.
And so despite their ostensible use of pronouns, that doesn’t mean they have a gender.
To compare? Steering well, well clear of human biology on purpose? Many vehicles and machines are referred to as “her”. They’re assigned female pronouns. But it doesn’t confer the actual gender on the vehicle or machine as a result.
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Dudeface wrote: It's largely irrelevant whether the orks are aware or not for the context of the conversation. The fact Ghazkul is on his crusade to make the biggest waagh ever, instead of simply "their" is the point.
Well, perhaps more pertinently they use male pronouns when translated into English/Low Gothic. It is humans who have assigned that.
It is also humans from an OOC perspective that have also assigned that.
And that's the important thing to recognise - that 40k *is* constructed, not just understanding from an in-universe perspective, where not every character within the setting knows everything about the setting (ie, Imperials using masculine gendered terms to describe Orks), but also that those fictional humans' understanding is created by what we (or, rather GW), out of character real life humans, have assigned.
If GW wanted, they could make a point of highlighting how the human names for things (like Boyz) is different to the Ork's name for them. In fact, in Destiny by Bungie has a great moment of this, where we realise that one of the most violent and savage groups of an alien race, the House of Wolves, in their own language is actually called "Gentle Weavers" (or something like that).
Bungie could have easily not mentioned that, and left our understanding as simply "House of Wolves is the human name for it", but by actually providing the alien name alternative, we get a better look into the idea of socially constructed identities.
Ultimately, this is to say that, by *all metrics that we are aware of*, Orks are functionally still gender coded. While they may be *asexual*, and *agender*, they still have gender coded elements that define them as masculine presenting.
Custodes were masculine presenting, but by virtue of being human, they maintained the possibility of gender fluidity, and their use of gendered pronouns was more easily understood by the assumed "neutrality" of male language. Orks, on the other hand, by being an alien construct without a human base, by so vividly parodying masculine attitudes and behaviours, and literally naming so many of their units "-Boyz" established a stronger gender identity than Custodes ever had.
Or, to put another way:
Orks are more "male coded" than the "all-male" factions like Space Marines (and previously Custodes) are.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: We don’t actually know if Orks know, or indeed care if they do, that other species have males and females, because it’s just Not A Thing for the Ork species.
If you’re smaller and weedier than them? It’s because you’re not green like a proper Ork. Not because of what is and isn’t in your undies.
And so despite their ostensible use of pronouns, that doesn’t mean they have a gender.
Absolutely correct - however, our understanding of them (both in-universe and out of universe) does not make that distinction.
If we had textual examples of Orks using non-masculine pronouns and language in their native language (or a translated version that is legible to Us Real Folks), then we could confidently say that Ork gender is outright agender.
However, they are still ultimately gender *coded*, and because they aren't so easily identifiable as "modified humans", in the same way Custodes and Astartes are, they are more evidently "male" coded.
Interestingly, an argument can be made that Custodes, Orks, and Space Marines are all asexual, and might all lie some way on the agender/transgender/postgender spectrum. However, due to both IC and OC gendered language, this isn't investigated or unpicked as rigourously as it could be.
A Town Called Malus wrote: Orks have no gender, yet the writer immediately genders them as male by referring to them as he/him.
And in the end? Out in the real world?
No one cares.
i think this thread has demonstrated that many people care about these topics
what is the "real world", anyway. everyone uses the internet these days. people are more connected than ever. this forum is a niche, but how are opinions on, say, twitter, different from those that people hold in real life
she/her
i have played games of the current edition
Same with Ad-Mech, though as discussed elsewhere they’re perhaps better described as post-gender, just another sacrifice of their humanity on the altar of the Omnissiah.
Tyranids however? Hormogaunts may very well be female, as they’re confirmed to be egg layers. Though given the weirdness of that race of gribblies, I can’t rule out the eggs as described aren’t generated by the Hormagaunts, but implanted and that.
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Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: We don’t actually know if Orks know, or indeed care if they do, that other species have males and females, because it’s just Not A Thing for the Ork species.
If you’re smaller and weedier than them? It’s because you’re not green like a proper Ork. Not because of what is and isn’t in your undies.
And so despite their ostensible use of pronouns, that doesn’t mean they have a gender.
Absolutely correct - however, our understanding of them (both in-universe and out of universe) does not make that distinction.
If we had textual examples of Orks using non-masculine pronouns and language in their native language (or a translated version that is legible to Us Real Folks), then we could confidently say that Ork gender is outright agender.
However, they are still ultimately gender *coded*, and because they aren't so easily identifiable as "modified humans", in the same way Custodes and Astartes are, they are more evidently "male" coded.
Interestingly, an argument can be made that Custodes, Orks, and Space Marines are all asexual, and might all lie some way on the agender/transgender/postgender spectrum. However, due to both IC and OC gendered language, this isn't investigated or unpicked as rigourously as it could be.
personally i don't love the interpretation of space marines et al as "asexual" in the sense of the queer identity. there's a lot of baggage here (for example, space marines have all the brainwashing and physical alterations)
granted, 40k isn't much of a sexual setting in the first place, so it's hard to have asexuality, since it's primarily defined by absence. whether or not a given sister of battle is asexual or allosexual won't really come up, compared to gender which can be (but isn't always) more obvious
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Same with Ad-Mech, though as discussed elsewhere they’re perhaps better described as post-gender, just another sacrifice of their humanity on the altar of the Omnissiah.
Tyranids however? Hormogaunts may very well be female, as they’re confirmed to be egg layers. Though given the weirdness of that race of gribblies, I can’t rule out the eggs as described aren’t generated by the Hormagaunts, but implanted and that.
if my tumblr mutuals have any say in the matter, all tech priests are non-binary
insect gender and sex is weird, so i assume it's the same for tyranids
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2024/05/06 15:23:18
she/her
i have played games of the current edition
JNAProductions wrote: From an out of universe perspective, Orks are stereotypically male.
From an in universe perspective, I'd imagine the closest things Orks have to gender in their own society is the various types of Boys. A MekBoy is different from a WeirdBoy in ways that matter to the Orks.
And, as a reminder, Orks are NOT stupid. They're simple. If an Ork force found itself on a planet with strong gender norms among the local populace, especially in regards to who fights, they'd learn that. They wouldn't ADOPT that to themselves, but they'd certainly learn that "Oomie men are the stabby ones, and oomie women man the artillery" or whatever the planet does.
It's fun to discuss what in-universe Ork society might have for gender equivalents, or what they think of other species' gender ideas.
But from our perspective-that is, someone who doesn't exist inside the 40k universe-they are presented as male.
Clocks for the clockmaker! Cogs for the cog throne!
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: I’ve speculated before whether a Tech-Priest might alter themselves to the opposite gender, in case it brings them some insight to a given mystery.
When we know they can download and store memories externally, removing them from their conscious brain, I guess all bets are off.
Apologies if any of my wording is ham-fisted here. I’m genuinely trying my best and am happy to be corrected. Just please do so via PM
yeah, i can definitely imagine tech priests moving between different presentations and genders for a lot of different reasons. i'm hesitant to use the term genderfluid here, but i can imagine a take on the concept where that would be appropriate
when your body is already easily modified and upgraded, something flimsy like a gender binary would fall by the wayside
JNAProductions wrote: From an out of universe perspective, Orks are stereotypically male.
From an in universe perspective, I'd imagine the closest things Orks have to gender in their own society is the various types of Boys. A MekBoy is different from a WeirdBoy in ways that matter to the Orks.
And, as a reminder, Orks are NOT stupid. They're simple. If an Ork force found itself on a planet with strong gender norms among the local populace, especially in regards to who fights, they'd learn that. They wouldn't ADOPT that to themselves, but they'd certainly learn that "Oomie men are the stabby ones, and oomie women man the artillery" or whatever the planet does.
It's fun to discuss what in-universe Ork society might have for gender equivalents, or what they think of other species' gender ideas.
But from our perspective-that is, someone who doesn't exist inside the 40k universe-they are presented as male.
this is why i made that thread as a separate topic. as an exercise in in-universe xenobiology, it's fun and interesting to talk about, but boyz as we see them are exclusively male (give or take some models older than my parents' marriage)
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2024/05/06 15:37:04
she/her
i have played games of the current edition
Can I ask those who know better: would Men of Iron be a good example here for genderless phrasing? Getting past the very first word, it's a literal robot. No gender parts to speak of. No squishy organics. Not even a gendered personality. Again, excusing the very first word, THEY are always referred to as THEY/THEM, or IT. Men of Iron is just a Moniker, like IBM, or Thinkpad. If we retconned Men of Iron to be People of Iron, it would be an exact match for how we are trying to visualize the Ork example. You have zero problem with the lore being genderless in that example. Now apply it to the Orks, or the Custodes, or the Space Marines. They or them. Done. They are a powerful fighting force. Are we done here?
For me, the really fun thing is that 39,000 years into the future, and coming out the other end of mankind’s technological zenith? We can’t assume even human genders are what they are today.
Sure, it’s still the ladies that carry the gestating baby. But then…we’ve stuff like Vat Born, Clone Vats, Vitae-Wombs and all other sorts of technological alternatives in play.
Certainly there’s little to no evidence of the Imperial Guard having a recruitment preference. The gangs of Necromunda don’t seem to be fussed either, outside of Escher who are a genuinely special case due to their gene curse introducing a restriction not experienced by others.
Add in the evidence that during the Golden Age of Mankind, the colony ships had STCs capable of genetic alterations (the extremes being Abhumans and Kin), so the colonists could hit the ground running if the world settled wasn’t close to Earth Normal. And thanks to how The Imperium works (shipping workers and soldiers around as needed), those genetic tweaks are now out and about in the general populace, and we can’t say the modern differences between men and women remain - even without the gender roles being as enforced as they are now or have been traditionally.
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Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Same with Ad-Mech, though as discussed elsewhere they’re perhaps better described as post-gender, just another sacrifice of their humanity on the altar of the Omnissiah.
Tyranids however? Hormogaunts may very well be female, as they’re confirmed to be egg layers. Though given the weirdness of that race of gribblies, I can’t rule out the eggs as described aren’t generated by the Hormagaunts, but implanted and that.
I think the difference is that AdMech are so layered, masked, and obscured that they're kinda removed from a lot of gender signifiers. Tyranids aren't even humanoid looking, so humanoid mrkings of gender is kinda obliterated.
Going through, I'd go through gender appearances as such:
Spoiler:
Sororitas - Fem-coded (with the exception of their male priests and followers)
Custodes - Generally gender neutral armour (because of the sheer size), but with masc-coded heads. Hopefully to change in time to also feature fem-coded heads. SoS are fem-coded.
Mechanicus - Agender. No strong features of gender either way.
Titanicus - Big robots. No gender.
Agents - A variety of genders.
Astra Militarum - A variety of genders.
Grey Knights - Large armour means that anyone could be in it - but male pronouns and all male heads. Could simply be a default coding, but at present, explicitly all male.
Imperial Knights - Big robots. No gender.
Astartes - Like Grey Knights, large armour tends to remove ideas of "gender", but aforementioned male pronouns and heads. Again - could be changed with headswaps and language, but at present, explicitly male.
Daemons - Tzeentch Daemons and Nurgle daemons lack a lot of gendered identity. Khorne and Slaanesh daemons are typically androgyne (Khorne leaning masc, Slaanesh leaning fem, but ultimately not hyper-coded)
Chaos Knights - Big robots. No gender.
Chaos Marines - Like Grey Knights and Astartes. Large armour obscures "gender", but currently only use male pronouns and faces. Could be changed with headswaps and gender neutral language. Currently only explicitly male, but people seem to embrace the idea that there is some gender deviancy.
Eldar - A variety of genders.
Dark Eldar - A variety of genders.
Genestealer Cult - A variety of genders, or outright alien aesthetics.
Votann - Large armour, coupled with mixed gender representation beneath the armour.
Orks - Masculine coded, due to being generally under armoured, and still largely humanoid in overall physique. Textually agender, but masculine in appearance and language (ironically the opposite of Space Marine flavours!)
Necrons - Robotic. No discernible signs of gender.
T'au - Obscuring armour, coupled with mixed "gender" representation (we see sexual dimorphism, even if shown in a different way to our understanding - humanoid aliens, but not overly "gendered" by human terms).
Tyranids - Not even humanoid. No gender.
Did I miss anything? Either way, I have noticed that point of interest - that Orks are the most "masculine" army in appearance and behaviour, but are textually agender. Space Marines, which are often championed as the "masculine" army, are predominantly masculine in name only - in appearance, they aren't overly male unless you remove the helmet.
Is this a new observation?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
StudentOfEtherium wrote:personally i don't love the interpretation of space marines et al as "asexual" in the sense of the queer identity. there's a lot of baggage here (for example, space marines have all the brainwashing and physical alterations)
granted, 40k isn't much of a sexual setting in the first place, so it's hard to have asexuality, since it's primarily defined by absence. whether or not a given sister of battle is asexual or allosexual won't really come up, compared to gender which can be (but isn't always) more obvious
Nah, I get you!
I use asexual in a way that is distinct from our current understanding of real people who are asexual/aromantic - but ultimately simply in that Space Marines are not sexually available or concerned post-humans. A guardsmen's asexuality is different to a Space Marines' asexuality, for example.
If you have an alternative classification, I'd be interested to hear it!
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2024/05/06 15:47:51
Necrons do identify by gender, as we have explicitly female identifying Phaerons in the mix. But they’re also that odd thing, where it’s only really the upper echelons that have any sense of self identity at all.
The Necron Warrior and Immortal, by far the majority of the species, have no self identity as we understand it.
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Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Necrons do identify by gender, as we have explicitly female identifying Phaerons in the mix. But they’re also that odd thing, where it’s only really the upper echelons that have any sense of self identity at all.
The Necron Warrior and Immortal, by far the majority of the species, have no self identity as we understand it.
Pardon, I mean as in they are not visually gender-coded, but *do* have gender in the form of language. We only know they have a gender from textual data, not from visual or aesthetic data.
For Marines and Custodes of all stripes? I think post-human is the best descriptive. They’re not natural, to the point that by no metric are they even Human anymore. As such, gender roles probably don’t rely apply further.
Just as an Ork is an Ork, first and foremost? A Marine and a Custode are…a Marine and a Custode. Not human. As such, concepts of male and female may simply not apply to them as it does in our society.
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Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Same with Ad-Mech, though as discussed elsewhere they’re perhaps better described as post-gender, just another sacrifice of their humanity on the altar of the Omnissiah.
Tyranids however? Hormogaunts may very well be female, as they’re confirmed to be egg layers. Though given the weirdness of that race of gribblies, I can’t rule out the eggs as described aren’t generated by the Hormagaunts, but implanted and that.
I think the difference is that AdMech are so layered, masked, and obscured that they're kinda removed from a lot of gender signifiers. Tyranids aren't even humanoid looking, so humanoid mrkings of gender is kinda obliterated.
Going through, I'd go through gender appearances as such:
Spoiler:
Sororitas - Fem-coded (with the exception of their male priests and followers)
Custodes - Generally gender neutral armour (because of the sheer size), but with masc-coded heads. Hopefully to change in time to also feature fem-coded heads. SoS are fem-coded.
Mechanicus - Agender. No strong features of gender either way.
Titanicus - Big robots. No gender.
Agents - A variety of genders.
Astra Militarum - A variety of genders.
Grey Knights - Large armour means that anyone could be in it - but male pronouns and all male heads. Could simply be a default coding, but at present, explicitly all male.
Imperial Knights - Big robots. No gender.
Astartes - Like Grey Knights, large armour tends to remove ideas of "gender", but aforementioned male pronouns and heads. Again - could be changed with headswaps and language, but at present, explicitly male.
Daemons - Tzeentch Daemons and Nurgle daemons lack a lot of gendered identity. Khorne and Slaanesh daemons are typically androgyne (Khorne leaning masc, Slaanesh leaning fem, but ultimately not hyper-coded)
Chaos Knights - Big robots. No gender.
Chaos Marines - Like Grey Knights and Astartes. Large armour obscures "gender", but currently only use male pronouns and faces. Could be changed with headswaps and gender neutral language. Currently only explicitly male, but people seem to embrace the idea that there is some gender deviancy.
Eldar - A variety of genders.
Dark Eldar - A variety of genders.
Genestealer Cult - A variety of genders, or outright alien aesthetics.
Votann - Large armour, coupled with mixed gender representation beneath the armour.
Orks - Masculine coded, due to being generally under armoured, and still largely humanoid in overall physique. Textually agender, but masculine in appearance and language (ironically the opposite of Space Marine flavours!)
Necrons - Robotic. No discernible signs of gender.
T'au - Obscuring armour, coupled with mixed "gender" representation (we see sexual dimorphism, even if shown in a different way to our understanding - humanoid aliens, but not overly "gendered" by human terms).
Tyranids - Not even humanoid. No gender.
Did I miss anything? Either way, I have noticed that point of interest - that Orks are the most "masculine" army in appearance and behaviour, but are textually agender. Space Marines, which are often championed as the "masculine" army, are predominantly masculine in name only - in appearance, they aren't overly male unless you remove the helmet.
Is this a new observation?
my two notes:
Slaanesh tends to lean towards explicit androgyny, which is why a lot of models will include aspects of men and women (a lot of them only have one breast, for example). this was called attention to in the old realms of chaos books (although, hilariously, without google around to correct them, the writers used "bisexual" to describe this). as a whole, Slaanesh's aesthetic is more intersex than anything else... but when it comes to the way that people perceive gender, androgyny is adjacent to femininity. the margin in the middle is thin, and in the absence of traditional male signifiers, people will assume femininity. this is why, for example, bishounen anime characters will be perceived of as "girly" even when they don't have any explicit feminine aspects
and regarding GSC, the army definitely has models for men and women, but they definitely lean further towards grizzled snarling men like a lot of other male-focused factions. in particular, neophytes are exclusively male, while all the female models are characters
she/her
i have played games of the current edition
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Necrons do identify by gender, as we have explicitly female identifying Phaerons in the mix. But they’re also that odd thing, where it’s only really the upper echelons that have any sense of self identity at all.
The Necron Warrior and Immortal, by far the majority of the species, have no self identity as we understand it.
Pardon, I mean as in they are not visually gender-coded, but *do* have gender in the form of language. We only know they have a gender from textual data, not from visual or aesthetic data.
Oh, gotcha. It’s hard to say, because they went with the hyperstylised Skellington look. Now, an anthropologist can look at a human Skellington alone, and make inferences about its possible sex outside of any other contextual clues, like burial goods, clothing etc. Stuff including but I believe not limited to the teeth, jaw and pelvis.
For the Necrons? I don’t think we can rule out they do have gender presentation in their adopted bodies. But to the outside observer, we’ve no idea, because we don’t have knowledge of what a Necrontyr actually looked like, and whether they even had sexual dimorphism in their natural bodies. Come to think of it? We don’t even know if they were cold blooded, warm blooded etc. For all we know, if their biology even had real world analogies of any kind? They could’ve been scaled, cold blooded marsupials, where akin to some (all?) species of Sea Horse, it was the male that had the pouch, and so nurtured the young.
Aaaaaaand now my Brian is running off down that alleyway giggling maniacally.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2024/05/06 15:59:55
Fed up of Scalpers? But still want your Exclusives? Why not join us?
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Necrons do identify by gender, as we have explicitly female identifying Phaerons in the mix. But they’re also that odd thing, where it’s only really the upper echelons that have any sense of self identity at all.
The Necron Warrior and Immortal, by far the majority of the species, have no self identity as we understand it.
Pardon, I mean as in they are not visually gender-coded, but *do* have gender in the form of language. We only know they have a gender from textual data, not from visual or aesthetic data.
Oh, gotcha. It’s hard to say, because they went with the hyperstylised Skellington look. Now, an anthropologist can look at a human Skellington alone, and make inferences about its possible sex outside of any other contextual clues, like burial goods, clothing etc. Stuff including but I believe not limited to the teeth, jaw and pelvis.
For the Necrons? I don’t think we can rule out they do have gender presentation in their adopted bodies. But to the outside observer, we’ve no idea, because we don’t have knowledge of what a Necrontyr actually looked like, and whether they even had sexual dimorphism in their natural bodies. Come to think of it? We don’t even know if they were cold blooded, warm blooded etc. For all we know, if their biology even had real world analogies of any kind? They could’ve been scaled, cold blooded marsupials, where akin to some (all?) species of Sea Horse, it was the male that had the pouch, and so nurtured the young.
Aaaaaaand now my Brian is running off down that alleyway giggling maniacally.
There are some references to their pre-necrontyr forms in the twice dead king series I think it was, but its going back a bit to recall. They were largely human looking iirc.
JNAProductions wrote: From an out of universe perspective, Orks are stereotypically male.
From an in universe perspective, I'd imagine the closest things Orks have to gender in their own society is the various types of Boys. A MekBoy is different from a WeirdBoy in ways that matter to the Orks.
And, as a reminder, Orks are NOT stupid. They're simple. If an Ork force found itself on a planet with strong gender norms among the local populace, especially in regards to who fights, they'd learn that. They wouldn't ADOPT that to themselves, but they'd certainly learn that "Oomie men are the stabby ones, and oomie women man the artillery" or whatever the planet does.
It's fun to discuss what in-universe Ork society might have for gender equivalents, or what they think of other species' gender ideas.
But from our perspective-that is, someone who doesn't exist inside the 40k universe-they are presented as male.
The problem as I see it is that we have the novel Brutal Kunnin'. In there we have a female techpriest that is hardly female and referred to as she. We have a skitari using his/her own pronouns (at least in the german translation, not sure if it's just "they" in english and they didn't know how to translate that) and is supposed to be postgender I guess. We also have an Iron Warrior who is a "he" and we have all the Orks and Grots that always refer to themselves as he with the only notable exception of a Squig that becomes a "she" after it got the name of "princess" because it ate a "princeps" and the Orks didn't understand what that's supposed to mean.
So, the Orks might have a concept of gender OR at least they copy the designations from humans. It's one aspect I don’t like about the book, it's basically just the Ork codex in novel form . I prefer the way they handled Ork language in The beast arises where it's always: "The Ork shouted something in their crude language the Space Marines couldn't understand."
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2024/05/06 17:03:53
JNAProductions wrote: From an out of universe perspective, Orks are stereotypically male.
From an in universe perspective, I'd imagine the closest things Orks have to gender in their own society is the various types of Boys. A MekBoy is different from a WeirdBoy in ways that matter to the Orks.
And, as a reminder, Orks are NOT stupid. They're simple. If an Ork force found itself on a planet with strong gender norms among the local populace, especially in regards to who fights, they'd learn that. They wouldn't ADOPT that to themselves, but they'd certainly learn that "Oomie men are the stabby ones, and oomie women man the artillery" or whatever the planet does.
It's fun to discuss what in-universe Ork society might have for gender equivalents, or what they think of other species' gender ideas.
But from our perspective-that is, someone who doesn't exist inside the 40k universe-they are presented as male.
The problem as I see it is that we have the novel Brutal Kunnin'. In there we have a female techpriest that is hardly female and referred to as she. We have a skitari using his/her own pronouns (at least in the german translation, not sure if it's just "they" in english and they didn't know how to translate that) and is supposed to be postgender I guess. We also have an Iron Warrior who is a "he" and we have all the Orks and Grots that always refer to themselves as he with the only notable exception of a Squig that becomes a "she" after it got the name of "princess" because it ate a "princeps" and the Orks didn't understand what that's supposed to mean.
So, the Orks might have a concept of gender OR at least they copy the designations from humans. It's one aspect I don’t like about the book, it's basically just the Ork codex in novel form . I prefer the way they handled Ork language in The beast arises where it's always: "The Ork shouted something in their crude language the Space Marines couldn't understand."
Do you feel that Orks are not male-coded and male-presenting from our perspective?
Clocks for the clockmaker! Cogs for the cog throne!
JNAProductions wrote: From an out of universe perspective, Orks are stereotypically male.
From an in universe perspective, I'd imagine the closest things Orks have to gender in their own society is the various types of Boys. A MekBoy is different from a WeirdBoy in ways that matter to the Orks.
And, as a reminder, Orks are NOT stupid. They're simple. If an Ork force found itself on a planet with strong gender norms among the local populace, especially in regards to who fights, they'd learn that. They wouldn't ADOPT that to themselves, but they'd certainly learn that "Oomie men are the stabby ones, and oomie women man the artillery" or whatever the planet does.
It's fun to discuss what in-universe Ork society might have for gender equivalents, or what they think of other species' gender ideas.
But from our perspective-that is, someone who doesn't exist inside the 40k universe-they are presented as male.
The problem as I see it is that we have the novel Brutal Kunnin'. In there we have a female techpriest that is hardly female and referred to as she. We have a skitari using his/her own pronouns (at least in the german translation, not sure if it's just "they" in english and they didn't know how to translate that) and is supposed to be postgender I guess. We also have an Iron Warrior who is a "he" and we have all the Orks and Grots that always refer to themselves as he with the only notable exception of a Squig that becomes a "she" after it got the name of "princess" because it ate a "princeps" and the Orks didn't understand what that's supposed to mean.
So, the Orks might have a concept of gender OR at least they copy the designations from humans. It's one aspect I don’t like about the book, it's basically just the Ork codex in novel form . I prefer the way they handled Ork language in The beast arises where it's always: "The Ork shouted something in their crude language the Space Marines couldn't understand."
this is a lore perspective, and if you want to talk about that, i have a handy threat all about that subject! it's really interesting stuff and not what we're talking about in this thread
she/her
i have played games of the current edition
JNAProductions wrote: From an out of universe perspective, Orks are stereotypically male.
From an in universe perspective, I'd imagine the closest things Orks have to gender in their own society is the various types of Boys. A MekBoy is different from a WeirdBoy in ways that matter to the Orks.
And, as a reminder, Orks are NOT stupid. They're simple. If an Ork force found itself on a planet with strong gender norms among the local populace, especially in regards to who fights, they'd learn that. They wouldn't ADOPT that to themselves, but they'd certainly learn that "Oomie men are the stabby ones, and oomie women man the artillery" or whatever the planet does.
It's fun to discuss what in-universe Ork society might have for gender equivalents, or what they think of other species' gender ideas.
But from our perspective-that is, someone who doesn't exist inside the 40k universe-they are presented as male.
The problem as I see it is that we have the novel Brutal Kunnin'. In there we have a female techpriest that is hardly female and referred to as she. We have a skitari using his/her own pronouns (at least in the german translation, not sure if it's just "they" in english and they didn't know how to translate that) and is supposed to be postgender I guess. We also have an Iron Warrior who is a "he" and we have all the Orks and Grots that always refer to themselves as he with the only notable exception of a Squig that becomes a "she" after it got the name of "princess" because it ate a "princeps" and the Orks didn't understand what that's supposed to mean.
So, the Orks might have a concept of gender OR at least they copy the designations from humans. It's one aspect I don’t like about the book, it's basically just the Ork codex in novel form . I prefer the way they handled Ork language in The beast arises where it's always: "The Ork shouted something in their crude language the Space Marines couldn't understand."
Do you feel that Orks are not male-coded and male-presenting from our perspective?
Indeed they are. Maybe I misunderstood your point. I thought you were saying we don’t have their in-universe views or language so we wouldn't know if they actually described themselves as Boyz and he or if that's just the Imperial view. But from all/most the in-universe talking of Orks we can only conclude they really speak cockney and are all male-coded. I know there's also the debate about low-gothic and nobody's actually speaking english in 40K and so on but if we go down that road we don’t know anything
JNAProductions wrote: From an out of universe perspective, Orks are stereotypically male.
From an in universe perspective, I'd imagine the closest things Orks have to gender in their own society is the various types of Boys. A MekBoy is different from a WeirdBoy in ways that matter to the Orks.
And, as a reminder, Orks are NOT stupid. They're simple. If an Ork force found itself on a planet with strong gender norms among the local populace, especially in regards to who fights, they'd learn that. They wouldn't ADOPT that to themselves, but they'd certainly learn that "Oomie men are the stabby ones, and oomie women man the artillery" or whatever the planet does.
It's fun to discuss what in-universe Ork society might have for gender equivalents, or what they think of other species' gender ideas.
But from our perspective-that is, someone who doesn't exist inside the 40k universe-they are presented as male.
The problem as I see it is that we have the novel Brutal Kunnin'. In there we have a female techpriest that is hardly female and referred to as she. We have a skitari using his/her own pronouns (at least in the german translation, not sure if it's just "they" in english and they didn't know how to translate that) and is supposed to be postgender I guess. We also have an Iron Warrior who is a "he" and we have all the Orks and Grots that always refer to themselves as he with the only notable exception of a Squig that becomes a "she" after it got the name of "princess" because it ate a "princeps" and the Orks didn't understand what that's supposed to mean.
So, the Orks might have a concept of gender OR at least they copy the designations from humans. It's one aspect I don’t like about the book, it's basically just the Ork codex in novel form . I prefer the way they handled Ork language in The beast arises where it's always: "The Ork shouted something in their crude language the Space Marines couldn't understand."
this is a lore perspective, and if you want to talk about that, i have a handy threat all about that subject! it's really interesting stuff and not what we're talking about in this thread
You are absolutely right and I wondered myself why the tangent came up here again. Sorry!
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2024/05/06 17:32:58
. I prefer the way they handled Ork language in The beast arises where it's always: "The Ork shouted something in their crude language the Space Marines couldn't understand."
